Topic 20 -- Three Passions (catch-up)
You've told us what passion means to you already, now tell us what three specific passions have driven or influenced your life most, and more importantly, how.
My first and earliest passion: words. I don't mean this in the annoying way that third-rate poets and so-called novelists parade their lack-of-accomplishment in front of Oprah Winfrey, and babble on about "falling in love with language at an early age." Rather, I remember knowing from an early age, maybe as long as I've known how to talk, that words are weapons, that they leave wounds which cut deeper and last longer than those proverbial sticks and stones. I learned to polish a well-timed jibe the way that certain men I won't mention labor over their gold-plated revolvers or customized shotguns. I can hit a moving target from a good distance, myself, but that's a necessity of the trade. I never expect a conflict to end with pistols at twenty paces, but show me what you can do with words, and I might have use for you.
My second passion: motion. By which I mean, lack of stasis, the opposite of boredom. Perhaps you expect me to mention the law, but -- like, I venture to say, most intelligent lawyers -- I hate the law. By nature -- by intention, even -- the subject is dull. Judges and lawmakers work with the aim of making everything uniform and predictable. Any intelligent person in that field has to come up with extracurricular pursuits, or find themselves insane. If I may pay one compliment to my former employer, it is that the very process of attempting to stay alive made the work considerably less boring.
The description of my third passion is arrived at by a combination of the first two, and a confession that I do often enjoy poetry, as long as the writer makes no attempt to pluck at nonexistent heartstrings:
Sex Without Love
How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.
-Sharon Olds
My first and earliest passion: words. I don't mean this in the annoying way that third-rate poets and so-called novelists parade their lack-of-accomplishment in front of Oprah Winfrey, and babble on about "falling in love with language at an early age." Rather, I remember knowing from an early age, maybe as long as I've known how to talk, that words are weapons, that they leave wounds which cut deeper and last longer than those proverbial sticks and stones. I learned to polish a well-timed jibe the way that certain men I won't mention labor over their gold-plated revolvers or customized shotguns. I can hit a moving target from a good distance, myself, but that's a necessity of the trade. I never expect a conflict to end with pistols at twenty paces, but show me what you can do with words, and I might have use for you.
My second passion: motion. By which I mean, lack of stasis, the opposite of boredom. Perhaps you expect me to mention the law, but -- like, I venture to say, most intelligent lawyers -- I hate the law. By nature -- by intention, even -- the subject is dull. Judges and lawmakers work with the aim of making everything uniform and predictable. Any intelligent person in that field has to come up with extracurricular pursuits, or find themselves insane. If I may pay one compliment to my former employer, it is that the very process of attempting to stay alive made the work considerably less boring.
The description of my third passion is arrived at by a combination of the first two, and a confession that I do often enjoy poetry, as long as the writer makes no attempt to pluck at nonexistent heartstrings:
Sex Without Love
How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.
-Sharon Olds